Sharing Handmade Kindness with Strangers!

I have a couple of things to share with you today, but first I wanted to say welcome to my new followers! You're very much welcome and appreciated! Sometimes I'm great about updating and sometimes life gets in the way and I'm a little scatterbrained, but I hope you enjoy what I share here!

First up, I'm sharing a little project that I started on Thanksgiving. My husband sort of works retail (he's a support person for Verizon), so he had to leave me on Thanksgiving night to help with Best Buy during their evening sale. I decided to take that time and start creating a few little one-sided cards to share with strangers on Black Friday.

I used to work retail for many, many years and I haven't actually shopped on Black Friday since I left retail. It's my own personal protest, I guess. This year, I went out on Black Friday specifically to share a little handmade kindness (breaking my own rule of not leaving the house!).

The first batch I made was just generic, but I made a second set that were Christmas themed.

I went out and tried to place them on windshields without people noticing what I was doing. (It's actually really hard to do on such a busy day!) While I was already there, I decided to check out a couple of stores (why not, right?). I live in Arizona, so our mall is set up kind of like a strip mall, but with a beautiful park-like area between sections. It was just a nice to day to walk and enjoy the weather (since 7 months out of the year, you can't!). While I was in one of the stores, one of the ladies came back from her lunch break with one of my cards and she was so excited about it (and so were all the other employees) that I decided to go home and make a few more!

This time I added the baker's twine at the top to make it into a tag (the actual size is around 4 x 2 3/4). It's a mini one-sided card or a bookmark or a gift tag (versatility is key!). I added a small post-it on the back that said: "Use me for a bookmark or a gift tag. Or pass me on to someone else who could use a little Holiday Cheer!" I hope everyone who received one was as excited as the girl I witnessed! It made feel so good to spread a little bit of happiness on a day that can be extremely overwhelming!

I'm going to link this up to Jennifer McGuire's Share Handmade Kindness Challenge for Week 4. I've really loved this challenge and I'm going to try to do more of this in the future. I'm great about making things, but sometimes I forget to send things out!

While I'm at it, I'm also going to add the Christmas "cards" to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge (Anything Goes) and The Challenge #52 (Christmas Card). Why not spread the goodness around a little?